THE STORY

A thrill-seeking explorer wants to find and climb the biggest tree in Canada outside a logging community on the brink of collapse.Set in the formerly prosperous town of Port Renfrew, this 24-min adventure doc is told through the point-of-view of the residents, the local indigenous community, and a group of big tree climbers.

Hunting Giants is a cinematic adventure into the old-growth rainforests of British Columbia that asks a question faced by resource communities around the world: extract profit until nothing remains or risk everything in pursuit of a more sustainable future?

A MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTORS

Port Renfrew is in one of the most cinematically inspiring regions of the British Columbia's coastal mountain range. This was a huge draw for us as filmmakers, but what really captured our imaginations once we really dug into the project was the story of Port Renfrew itself.

Some of the largest trees on earth outside the redwood forests in California are found outside Port Renfrew. But this formerly-prosperous logging town is still struggling from collapse of the logging industry in the 1980s and it has even more challenges ahead.

It's estimated that the last unprotected old-growth forests on Vancouver Island will be logged within the next 2-5 years. This puts Port Renfrew at a crossroads: protect what's left of its ancient rainforest for ecotourism or continue logging old-growth until there’s nothing left but tree farms.

Port Renfrew is divided over two competing visions for its future. In one camp, there’s group of wilderness explorers hunting and climbing and cataloguing the last of the old-growth in hopes of creating an ecotourism economy; and in the other, the local indigenous nation has a 400-year plan (that includes forestry) to regain control of their land and save their nation from extinction.

Ultimately, Hunting Giants is story about self-belief and hope. It’s also a story about self-determination and choosing a future that you can live with. The two heroes in our film want the same outcome for their home town, but are going about achieving that outcome in different ways.

Our hope with HUNTING GIANTS is to start a discussion about Canada’s remaining old-growth and the complex realities that currently exist within the working forests of British Columbia.